


The Epsilon Incident

by CaptainFreakshake



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe- Monsters, Body Horror, Body Modification, Gen, Genetic Engineering, Genetic Modification, Human Experimentation, Mutation, rvb monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-09 23:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20125279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainFreakshake/pseuds/CaptainFreakshake
Summary: No matter what universe, Agent Washington's implantation with the Epsilon AI always seem to go wrong. And in a universe where Project Freelancer's all about genetic modification and mutation, it's bound to go very wrong indeed.





	The Epsilon Incident

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I've written anything in a LONG while, and I don't have a beta reader or anything, so this might be a little rough around the edges.
> 
> You can find more about this AU here on my tumblr ( https://onwardsmynoblesteve.tumblr.com/tagged/rvb-monsters ), including drawings of people's monster forms, background info, and some random silly stuff. Don't be afraid to ask questions!

Agent Washington’s mind was racing as he was taken to the specialised operating theatre. It didn’t help that he was strapped to a gurney. The reason why was obvious: in case anyone had any second thoughts about the procedure. Wash wasn’t just having second thoughts, he was having third and fourth and maybe even fifth thoughts.

Everyone who had gone through the procedure said it had been ok. Just that they’d woken up groggy and aching with a buzzing in the back of their skull, caused by the new AI settling in their head. But security footage said otherwise. South had attacked her own brother. Maine had practically destroyed the operating theatre. Carolina had gone into a manic frenzy, bouncing off the walls like a hyperactive cat. York tried to eat the door in an attempt to escape.

It’s safe to say that last thing didn’t work.

Wash tried to breathe deeply in an attempt to calm himself. Maybe he’d be lucky, like Wyoming, and it would just be a nice, calm transition with no excitement and no incidents.

At least everyone seemed to get along with their AIs. Wash wondered what his AI, Epsilon, would be like; calm like Delta, sweet like Theta, or perhaps mischievous like Gamma. Hopefully Epsilon wouldn’t be creepy like Sigma. Hopefully he wouldn’t give Wash headaches. Hopefully he wouldn’t get Wash _stuck_.

_No, no, don’t think like that, don’t, just think positively. It’ll be like having a new friend…that lives in your head…_

The AIs were strange entities to say the least, unlike any others of their kind. They weren’t just electronic chips to be stuck in machines or armour. They weren’t just a bundle of circuits. They were like…a fluid, a fluid of tiny nanomachinery, to be injected into a host, where they would form their own sort of neural network. They were designed to have a form of intimacy with their hosts never seen before, a union of organic and artificial minds.

They weren’t the only thing injected during the procedure. There was another substance too, which Wash was trying _desperately_ not to think about. A specialised and highly advanced retrovirus, which when combined with the AI’s nanomachinery would react to the body’s various neurotransmitters and hormones, like adrenaline and cortisol, in the most spectacular way. The AIs were to regulate this reaction and prevent it from going wrong, and rumour had it that it could go _very wrong indeed._ Even with so-called ‘successful’ procedures, the effects could still bring to mind old B-movie monsters.

Because that’s what they were, weren’t they? That’s what the retrovirus did.

It made people into monsters.

* * *

There were no people in the operating theatre. No surgeons, no doctors, no nurses. It was too dangerous. There were only machines: a heart rate monitor, emergency oxygen tanks, some unidentified medical gizmos, and in the centre of the room a mighty metal tube loomed. It resembled an enormous metal MRI scanner, a great cylinder with what could just be called a bed inside of it that the subject would lie on as humming machinery began to work on them.

Agent Washington was lifted onto the bed so that he was lying on his stomach, breathing rapidly, no longer distracted. This was happening, this was his reality, this was happening _right now._ What was going to happen, what was he going to be when he left this room? Would he even leave this room? Could the procedure _kill_ him?

The staff members who had brought him in scuttled off as quickly as possible. Wash was alone now, the sole subject in the stark sterile room, encased like a terrified caterpillar inside a giant metal chrysalis, ready to metamorphose. The only sound was his own rushed breathing, and the heavy beating of his heart.

A whirring from above him. A click. Wash could feel something coming closer, something being lowered from the roof on the tube towards his spine.

A pin prick. An injection.

_A scream._

Pain, pure pain, agony. Skin prickling, burning. Blind panic. Noise, so much noise, so loud, so_ goddamn loud!_

Everything and anything was happening. Was Wash’s life flashing before his eyes? Was he going to die? No, this wasn’t his life, not his memories. Or were they? He couldn’t think, not by himself, whoever he was. Agent Washington? David? Epsilon? Alpha? Foreign thoughts were tearing through his brain, as something tore through his skin and across his spine, as his hands tore at the bed underneath him.

He clawed at the bed, he clawed and clawed, _he couldn’t claw enough, not enough, not sharp enough._

Washington thrashed around, kicking and writhing and screaming and _howling. _So bare, so vulnerable, so unprotected. He was being attacked, stabbed in the back, _like she had been, she had died, she was DEAD, THEY WERE ALL DEAD, ALL DEAD, ALL HIS FAULT-_

He could only scream.

* * *

“This is an alert. Test Subject Agent Washington has escaped from the operating theatre.”

“Oh shit!”

“All non-agent personnel are to evacuate to the designated safe rooms. All Freelancer Agents are to be given orders in response to this emergency immediately,” continued FILSS.

“You know chaps, it doesn’t really sound like an emergency when she says it so calmly,” muttered Wyoming.

* * *

After what had happened to CT, York didn’t trust any of the other agents looking for Wash to be particularly merciful if push came to shove. He’d seen footage of what happened during Maine’s procedure when he went berserk, and caught glimpses of the scars South had left on her brother, so the chances of Wash attacking whoever found him were high, as were the chances of Wash’s discoverer ‘defending’ themselves. It was likely that most of the other agents would be on edge and trigger happy by default; the damage Wash had done to the OR before breaking out had been quite impressive, and no one would want to risk being torn apart like that big tube, or the heart monitor…or the door…

York actually found it almost embarrassing that Wash had escaped like that but he, the _infiltration specialist_, hadn’t. Sure, tearing the door off its hinges was a bit crude, but compared to York trying to _gnaw_ _through _the door (which he would never be allowed to live down), it just added insult to injury, and-

[_You may want to pay attention to the task at hand, York._]

“Sorry, D, just got a bit off track.” York replied out loud. He didn’t need to, but the sound of a human voice in the eerily quiet corridor calmed him a bit. The only other sound was the ship’s asthmatic vents, which weren’t exactly relaxing.

The lights in the corridor flickered and died. Apparently they had a sense of ambiance. York’s visor switched to night vision, turning everything a monochromatic grey-green.

A shadow was hunched over in the unlit corner. York tip-toed closer to get a better look…

“Oh god, Wash…What did that thing do to you?”

It looked as though Agent Washington had be taken apart and stitched back together by an insane Dr Frankenstein; his skin a patchwork of bristly hair, grey carapace and pale bald splotches bordered with scar tissue. The poor man’s face had been contorted into a short muzzle, like a crude facsimile of a starving coyote, and his eyes had been left sunken and bloodshot, with pupils like pinpricks flicking around frantically. Circuitry tore through the skin on Wash’s back, skirting around the mane of porcupine-esque quills running down his spine. Small rivulets of blood trickled from where he’d been injected; in fact, it looked like a few of the needles had been ripped out of the machine when Wash escaped from it.

York made his way quietly (or as quietly as someone in full armour can be) towards the shivering, mutated wreck of his friend.

_No sudden movements… just like you’re walking up to…I dunno, a cow, or a feral dog or something_

Delta was quiet for once, busy keeping York’s heartrate calm and his adrenaline in check. If there was one thing that was going to make Wash panic, it was York going monster. Nevertheless, he could feel the slight prickling of hair on the back of his neck that cropped up whenever it started to happen.

_Nice, deep breaths now…easy does it…_

“Hey, Wash, buddy…it’s me, York, your friend,” he said, removing his helmet. “Remember me?”

_If he goes for my face right now I am _so_ screwed._

York crouched down so he was at eye-level with Wash, trying to make himself seem less intimidating. Avoiding eye contact, he held out a hand towards Wash.

_God, I really am treating him like a dog, aren’t I?_

York had to admit, his skills in this particular area of social interaction were somewhat…lacking. This was more North’s territory. But York definitely knew what to do with dogs in this situation, and Wash _did_ kind of look like a dog…so close enough, right?

“Don’t worry, man,” he said softly, “I’m not gonna hurt you.”

Wash gradually, carefully started to crawl towards York. The change in position gave York a better look at him; here was now a small pair of secondary limbs behind his arms, the upper parts covered with the same grey exoskeleton that was layered above Wash’s neck and shoulder blades, with the little hands bare and pink.

“Hey would you look at that! Now we can be double limb buddies, huh, rookie?” York briefly considered showing off his own monster form to demonstrate what he meant, but quickly remembered that would probably scare Wash, which could result in all hell breaking loose.

Wash approached closer and closer. York now realised the noise that he’d thought had been the vents was in fact Wash’s own rattling breath. He paused when he came up against York’s outstretched hand, staring at it with wild eyes, mouth slightly ajar, allowing York to glimpse sharp, distorted teeth poking crookedly out of Wash’s gums.

“Ok, buddy, I think that’s close enough now…”

Wash didn’t stop.

“Wash…”

He was too close now.

“Eep!” was all York could manage, as suddenly Agent Washington was right against his face. He was starting to deeply regret taking off his helmet. The prickling feeling on the back of York’s neck got more intense; Delta must be working overtime to try and keep him fully human. Every self-preservation instinct he had was screaming. Washington’s sharp teeth, quills, claws, his twitching darting eyes, his hot breath, all inches away from York’s nose.

The beast leaned closer. York reached for his sidearm.

This was it.

And suddenly, Wash was sobbing on York’s shoulder, his quills and fur shedding, his tail and secondary arms shrinking, nails and teeth returning to normal. It was that kind of wet, thick, vulgar crying, the kind associated with snotty noses and hot red cheeks. York gently patted Wash’s back, not entirely out of ‘red alert mode’ and still rather shell-shocked from the whole ordeal. He didn’t feel as bad as Wash, of course, who was currently providing York’s left arm with its own personal waterfall, but he was pretty shaken up all the same.

York reached over for his helmet, attempting not to shift Wash around too much as he put it on and turned on the comms.

“Hey North, I need back-up.”

Agent North Dakota’s panicked voice answered immediately, fearing the worst, “Oh god, has-”

“No, no! Not that kind of back-up!” York cut him off. “The emotional kind, you know, with the…hugs and things,” he waved his hand around vaguely.

“_Ohhh thank god._” North let out a huge sigh of relief, “I’ll be over soon with the blanket.”

“Don’t forget the cat pictures.”


End file.
